After big talks of being welcoming and open-armed to let migrants come to Chicago, Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is being accused of hypocrisy, after it was discovered that dozens of migrants who recently arrived in Chicago by bus were secretly sent on to a wealthy Republican suburb.
Despite Lightfoot repeatedly claiming that Chicago was welcoming the influx of border-crossers from Texas, at least 64 were forwarded without warning to a Hampton Inn in Burr Ridge.
“Neither staff nor I were contacted about the decision to house migrants in Burr Ridge,” the village’s Republican mayor, Gary Grasso, complained.
“It is hypocrisy by the mayor of Chicago to complain” about the new arrivals being sent from Texas just to bounce them back to Republican areas, Grasso said over the weekend. “This isn’t about” the migrants, Grasso insisted, saying, “We’re more than happy for people to find freedom.”
However, Lightfoot and Democratic Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker. are using them as political pawns in their outrage at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the Burr Ridge mayor added.
“There must be vacant hotel rooms in Chicago,” Grasso said, noting the arrivals number just “hundreds of people in a city of millions. Why are they sending them out to the Republican suburbs? You have to wonder.”
Lightfoot has been cited saying, “Governor Abbott is without any shame or humanity for busing the migrants. He is a racist. It shouldn’t be that the governor of Texas is taking these people and treating them like cattle, treating them like property, putting them on buses and sending them wherever he wants to send them.”
Pritzker has also said that what his Texas counterpart is doing is disgusting and it needs to stop.
Pritzker’s rep confirmed that some of the arrivals had been sent to Burr Ridge, insisting it was part of a prior relationship with the hotel being used for welcoming refugees and asylum seekers before.
“It is interesting that local officials are choosing this specific instance to gripe to the press about this specific group of asylum seekers that consists of about 30 families,” the governor’s spokesperson said. “Gov. Pritzker has made it clear that Illinois is a welcoming state and xenophobia has no home here.”
The Illinois Department of Human Services said, “Many of the 300 migrants who have arrived in Chicago are receiving temporary shelter in suburban hotels.”
Texas Gov. Abbott remains firm in his promise to continue sending the border-crossers until the Biden administration tightens up its border policies.
Well the whole purpose with accepting all these undocumented aliens was to make them “Democrats for life” in gratitude. But if the plan has changed and they are being sent to Republican areas, then the Republicans should let them know who really took them in and make them Republicans for life.